


Make Do and Mend

by istia



Series: Rare Pairs [9]
Category: Robin of Sherwood
Genre: M/M, POV Will Scarlet, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 00:50:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15740745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/istia
Summary: In the aftermath ofThe Time of the Wolf, Robert overturns Will's life.





	Make Do and Mend

"You can't mean it."

"I need you. We need each other."

"But--what about Marion? You can't be serious."

Robert looked down, his lashes casting shadows on his pale Saxon cheeks. He was pale all over, shining golden like celandines nodding in a sunlit meadow, as though the sun touched his hair, but not his skin, unlike the rest of them who were browned and weathered. He smelt like fresh-cut rushes, clean and earthy at once. He was smaller than Will, but fierce as a cornered fox; he was younger, too, but fearsome in his otherworldly power. And he wanted Will.

Will's heart pounded like a cornered hare's.

"She's made her choice." Robert lifted his head at last and looked at Will with wounded eyes. "She's lost too much; suffered all she can bear. First Robin's death, then what she thought was mine. Her loyalty, her cleverness, belong to Herne's son, but her heart is her own to give where she chooses."

"Not about hearts, though, is it?" He stepped back from Robert, trying to calm the blood pounding through his body and making his breath short. "It's just about bodies. Hers. Yours."

"No. That's over. She's taken the veil, Will. She's no longer ours. But we don't have to be alone."

Robert reached slowly towards him, and he watched the hand approach. Why the fuck was he trembling? He watched Robert's fine-skinned, elegant hand reach towards him and he couldn't move, not to stop it, not to evade it. It touched his arm; the warmth on his bare forearm burned and he could feel the pressure, light but compelling as though it were binding his sinews. Will shut his eyes.

He'd wanted Robert since the moment the arsehole had refused to surrender to him in the alehouse in Lichfield. Younger than Will, and slimmer, far too pretty, a dandified Saxon lordling who held his lands from the Norman dogs, but Robert had kept matching Will blow for blow, dirty trick for dirty trick. Even sodden with drink as Will was, it shouldn't have happened. A weedy, capering dunderhead holding his own with Will? Absurd. Yet there they were, still both conscious, if not quite standing steadily, when John had grabbed them by the necks and hauled them out of town to safety when Gisburne and the Watch arrived.

He could've continued fighting; might even have bested the determined fool in the end. But Robert had said Robin's words to him-- _Nothing's forgotten_ \--and claimed to be Robin returned, and he'd claimed Will's help:

And eventually, all in a moment, Robert had claimed him.

But Robin--their first Robin--hadn't tried to claim Will like this. Had never wanted him like this. No one had wanted Will like this--wanted his body, wanted him alone in private--since the Norman scum murdered his Elena. Even the few unattached village women who welcomed John and even young Much with warm smiles and arms, looked askance at Will.

 _Will the Scarlet, Scarlet Will, Will of the Bloody-Hands_.

Their wary eyes made even the thought of approaching any of them unbearable, intolerable: They embodied fear where happiness should be.

"There's nothing to be afraid of." Robert's voice was soft as moss over stone. "I'll keep you safe."

You can't, he thought, and closed his eyes as Robert leaned closer. He couldn't bear to see Robert's eyes, intent on him; Robert's lips opening; the fine scratchy hairs of his day's beard shining in the sunlight. Will couldn't bear to see his own tiny reflections in Robert's eyes, like poppets in a child's hands, subject to the child's whims, the child's wants.

Then Robert's lips touched his, just a brush at first. A whisper of pressure, of the warmth he'd been starved for all these past years. Will's lips parted, just a minute shift, but Robert responded instantly with a firmer press of his mouth. Robert laid a hand against his cheek that Will instinctively leaned into, seeking more; the basic longing for touch that wasn't thumping or shoving or just comradely slaps on the shoulder.

Robert's mouth was a warm weight against Will's now, his lips strong, but yielding; soft yet demanding. Robert was undoing him with touch, his fingers stroking into the short hair at Will's temple while Robert's other hand still cradled his face. Robert was all around him, the smell of him like the freedom of Sherwood, the crinkle of his tunic echoing the quiet sound of the branches swaying in the breeze. Robert's tongue touched his lips, just a hint of warmth and moistness: a question, an offer. A hint of all Robert proposed if he chose to accept.

All he had to do was trust Robert with everything he was and had been...and could be.

But he had, after their fight to a draw, followed Robert. As he'd followed Robin. Left Lichfield, his family, his home, such as it was, for vagrancy and danger, cold beds and colder baths: and a fight with purpose and, for a man with his burning rage, _joy_ to it. He already knew he wouldn't be leaving again as long as Herne's Son was alive to draw them together, bind and lead them.

"Nobody could ever know." He spoke the words against Robert's mouth, still close, but not yet joined to his.

"Nobody needs to know, though, except us. Do they? But we'll always know, you and I'll know, there's a warm bed instead of a cold one when we want it, and arms waiting for us, and touch instead of loneliness."

Will leaned forward till their foreheads were touching and rested there in Robert's strong, unwavering grasp. He wasn't hurting Marion by taking Robert; she'd chosen Halstead Abbey over marriage to Robert and life with him in the forest. That part of Robert's life was done and finished. The rest....

The rest could be Will's, if he just reached out and took Robert's waiting hand.

"We'll look after each other," he said.

"Yes." Robert sounded calm, certain, but also like he was holding his breath, still as a statue.

Will let the tension ease out of his shoulders and smiled, just a shadow of his usual smirk. "And the rest of those merry-andrews, too. Not like any of that lot'll survive without both of us looking out for them."

Robert laughed and the last mists of disquiet cleared from Will's head. He pulled back just far enough to be the one to take Robert's face between his hands this time, drawing him forward. Robert was all easefulness in his grip, yielding and sure, and Will closed his eyes as their mouths met in their own wild pledge in the dappled shade of the oak trees under the canopy of the vast blue sky.


End file.
